So, I like this game a lot, but some of my players desire a little more (and more flashy) magic in the game. I’m trying to come up with a few more spells and talent trees to give sorcery a little more “normal” fantasy feeling while still retaining some of the Conan feel.
It is not “purist” Conan, but maybe you can use it as a nasty surprise for your players.
These are not yet complete, as I’m still trying to get a feel for how powerful the effects are supposed to be. My baseline was the spell Dismember. I’m gonna keep on posting my ongoing endeavours, if this thread meets interest.
Also, I’d like seeing your homemade Sorcery rules to compare and contrast.
First up is my list of standardized Sorcerous Garb:
Sorcerous Garb.pdf (179.7 KB)
Next up, the additional spells I finished at this point in time: Pyromancy, Geomancy, Shadow Mastery, Enhancement and Puppeteer:
Sorcery Spells.pdf (146.5 KB)
Lastly, the specialized talents branching off the Sorcerer talent to make Sorcerers especially effective at one chosen spell:
Specialist Sorcerer Talent Trees.pdf (144.1 KB)
Let me know what you think.
The links point to dropbox.com, so to everyone’s own Dropbox. You may want to adjust them.
In any case, for a more high fantasy-style magic system the spells should probably use mana instead of resolve. So mana could be Intelligence + Sorcery or something but the whole system would work pretty much the same.
Sorry, I honestly have no clue what I am doing, dropbox-wise. I edited the post and uploaded the documents directly.
The idea of using Mana is great for a full-on high fantasy system, but I actually like the idea of sorcery being mentally draining… I mean, out of combat, losing resolve isn’t that much of a deal anyway. But learning to reshape the way the universe works by pure willpower just has to be taxing on your brain, hasn’t it?
I’m probably going to introduce a talent similar to the Necromancer talent that allows sorcerers to regain permanent resolve loss, though without the depraved acts.
I really like the ideas you put into shadow sorcery. I’ve actually utilized similar magic in my campaign. Thank you for sharing your work!
Edited my original post. Added two more new spells (Enhancement and Puppeteer) with respective sorcerous garb. Updated the talent trees with trees for Shadow Mastery, Enhancement and Puppeteer.
Shadow sorcery and pyromancy are great lore friendly spells. You put a lot of thought to this with respect to the lore that myself and others can appreciate. I do feel that geomancy is delving too much into high fantasy though.
As I said, my players like a little more High Fantasy than the more gritty Sword&Sorcery of Conan.
That said, I’m glad that you like the Shadow Mastery and Pyromancy spells. My biggest concern is actually making the spells balanced with the rest of the systems thus keeping a Conan feel while adding more High Fantasy options.